Toronto Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy plans to head to Israel in March, 2018, to run in her 14th half marathon.supplied photo

It is Jewish tradition to say “Next Year in Jerusalem” at the end of a Passover seder and on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.

In 2018, I plan to do just that.

In early March — coincidentally during the same year the Jewish state turns 70 — I will be taking a spiritual journey to Jerusalem.

Although I’ve been to Israel several times before, this trip is very special.

I won’t just be fulfilling a two-year-long dream to run my 14th half-marathon through the hills, streets and even by the ancient sites of Jerusalem.

I will also be running in honour of a cutting edge organization called Beit Halochem — which translated from Hebrew means House of Warriors — an organization dedicated to rehabilitating and rebuilding the lives of veterans injured while defending and protecting the Jewish state.

The organization has four centres in Israel — in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and Beersheva — serving 51,000 veterans of wars and conflicts dating back to the creation of Israel.

(To put that number in context, the most current statistics show there are 68,000 active members of the Canadian military).

As Beit Halochem Canada executive director Lisa Levy (no relation) noted during a recent visit to the organization’s Toronto headquarters, it take $15.5 million (U.S.) a year to operate these four centres.

Another centre, costing $32-million (U.S.) is now being built in the beach town of Ashdod.

Levy says injured soldiers come to one of the centres for rehabilitation after they are released from hospital — and many continue their association with Beit Halochem for life.

Moshe Shemma, executive director of the Zahal Disabled Veterans Organization which oversees the centres in Israel, says they even have vets from the War of Independence in 1948. Some 500 soldiers were wounded in the last conflict in Gaza in 2014 and 146 of them have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“The main concept of Beit Halochem is our wish to give them a normal and quality life…to study in university, have a job and to raise a family,” he said, adding 90% of the disabled warriors get married and have children.

“We take care of anybody who’s been injured in the defence of Israel and is recognized as disabled,” he said.

The stories of how these vets become disabled are eerily similar, no matter the conflict.

There’s Reuven Magen, now 22, an armoured corps fighter whose right calf was severely injured by shrapnel in Gaza during the 50-day conflict in 2014. (Five of his friends were killed in the mortar attack).

Despite being blinded at 23 when an anti-tank missile hit the jeep he was driving near the Gaza border in 2012, Yehuda Persi, another fighter, now rappells, wall climbs, skis, dives and engages in go-carting through Beit Halochem’s Tel Aviv centre.

At the four Beit Halochem centres in Israel disabled soldiers are introduced to a wide variety of sports such as wheelchair basketball and tennis, swimming, volleyball, tandem bikes (for the blind) and even hand bikes for amputees and paraplegics.Supplied photo

The centres provide rehab, physiotherapy and hydrotherapy treatments, as well as therapy for those afflicted by PTSD.

Disabled soldiers are introduced to a wide variety of sports including wheelchair basketball, wheelchair tennis, swimming, volleyball, tandem bikes (for the blind) and even hand bikes for amputees and paraplegics.

At the four Beit Halochem centres in Israel disabled soldiers are introduced to a wide variety of sports such as wheelchair basketball, wheelchair tennis, swimming, volleyball, tandem bikes (for the blind) and even hand bikes for amputees and paraplegics.Supplied photo

Beit Halochem, I’m told, will have a group running the Jerusalem marathon/half-marathon but I’m so slow that I doubt I’ll be able to keep up with the disabled veterans.

There are also dance troupes in which a man or woman in a wheelchair is paired up with a standing partner or wheelchair-bound dancers perform in an ensemble.

Levy says the centers don’t just help vets, but the families of vets too with activities and opportunities to meet other families of injured soldiers.

“It’s very important that a kid can speak to another whose father is blind or has no limbs,” she says.

Meanwhile in preparation for my run, I’m training like crazy, which means running through snowstorms. And I’m brushing up on my Hebrew in Monday night classes at the downtown JCC.

I joke that’s so if I fall and can’t get up, or I get lost during the run, I can ask for help in Hebrew.

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